


It's All in the Past

by Mirror_Verse, orphan_account



Series: Mirror-Verse [29]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Flashbacks, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 23:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirror_Verse/pseuds/Mirror_Verse, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean was a kid, all he wanted was to be loved. He wanted his father to be proud of him, and so he did everything he could, including changing himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's All in the Past

When Dean was just five years old, his father began teaching him to fight. Mary had been against it, of course, but John said that if Dean wanted to learn, she had no leverage. When his father turned to him, Dean nodded frantically. Of course he wanted to learn, it would make his father proud of him, wouldn’t it?

Dean was naturally small and slender, with delicate (leaning towards feminine) features. He wasn’t really meant to be a fighter, or that’s what it seemed. He had tendencies towards cooking with Mary and taking long, luxurious baths that his mother gave him (the ones with all the bubbles). None of this deviance from tradional gender roles made him “less of a man” like his father would suggest, especially not as young as he was.

Dean tried so hard to be good at fighting, and he  _was._ He practiced until he was falling over with exhaustion. When his parents fought, he would go to his room and beat up his pillows to get his mind off of it. He would go off after school to the woods and practice surrounded by the calls of birds. He practiced beating up his brother’s future bullies.

_Dean’s skin was coated in a thin layer of sweat, but he kept going. His breath was coming fast, his heart was pounding and his legs felt like they were going to give out. But he kept fighting the dummy while his father took it all in with watchful eyes. Occasionally, Dean would take his eyes away from his target to look at his father’s face, looking for a smile, or for the twinkle of happy eyes. He was met with a stern look. ‘Get back to your practice.’ He turned back, every time, and worked his small body harder, beyond his limits. He focused on beating the dummy, rather than how he felt. This was how Dean learned to hide any feelings that weren’t ‘manly’ enough._

When he showed his father his progress, smiling up at him with bright green eyes, he never got so much as a smile, let alone the words he wanted to hear the most. And thus passed Dean’s childhood.

_“_ _I’m so proud of you.”_

Dean tried not to feel upset when he heard his father speaking to Sam in the kitchen. Sam was only 12 and everything that Dean had tried so hard to be. At sixteen he was barely passing school, bored in all of his classes. To Sam and his father he was a hyper-masculine version of himself; around his mother he was gentle and sweet.

At school he was a victim. No one knew about this, not at 22, not while it happened. When he was fourteen, they’d found him kissing Victor Henriksen. The first time the kids tried to beat him up he kicked their asses and they’d learned to be more subversive about it.

_He had managed to keep under the radar, for the most part. He didn’t make friends, and he dated a few girls and scored with them. He did his work and maybe he was a little too much a smart-ass. but he kept his nose clean. But it didn’t help that sometimes he wanted anther body a little stronger than the soft curves of a girl._

_That was how they were found; lips attached and Dean’s hands up Victor’s shirt, rubbing at the muscles. They were under the bleachers, isn’t that how it always goes? Victor was moving soon, he didn’t have to endure much of it, but soon the whole school knew that Dean Winchester was nothing but a fag._

Harsh words and comments; vandalism of his things and some more creative ways to torment other children, these hurt more than a broken bone. A broken bone would heal, a scar on the heart never did. They called him things, made him believe that he was ugly inside, stupid, worthless and he took it and ran with it. He internalized it.

_“So, Dean,” the guidance counselor said, “I hear you have some problems with bullies.”_

_“No, I don’t.” Dean replied, head down, repeating an inner mantra._ I am strong. I am a protector. Sammy looks up to me. I have to be strong.

 _“Dean, we’ve seen the words they wrote on your locker.” She said, gently, as if that would make his heart less broken, as if her words could cushion his entire_ life,  _as if she could fix it all with a magic phrase. She couldn’t make him hate himself less than he did with her sympathy. He didn’t need sympathy. He was strong. He was the older brother. Sam was supposed to look up to him._

_“Just don’t tell my dad.” He whispered, words cracking not with puberty, but with fear and dammed tears._

That was why his father was never proud of him, why he loved Sammy more. Dean was weak, he was a follower, a little soldier. Sam was strong and independent already; he stood up for what he wanted to do and what he believed in. Dean was the one that hid around feeling up boys in closets and only taking the girls home because he was so afraid to be himself. Sam was happy with himself and didn’t need the words of their father to be happy.

_It wasn’t fair!_

Sam didn’t  _want_ it! Dean tried  _so_ _hard_ his whole life but he was still too girly, too weak, too emotional, too  _kind_ , even. School was hell and not because he was stupid like they said, because he went to school to be called names like “faggot” and “bitch” and he couldn’t tell anyone. He couldn’t be the weak one.

He’d already tried everything. He tried to be the best fighter he could be. He tried to be more masculine. He tried to stop thinking the things he thought about the other boys. None of it worked.

_Dean had definitely thought about killing himself. He planned it out sometimes, how it would happen, when, and how people would react. He imagined his father falling to his knees and crying, holding Dean to his chest and apologizing for never loving him enough._

_He looked himself in the mirror and hated what he saw. Sure, girls and guys loved his face, his body. He knew he was attractive, to them, but he wasn’t masculine enough. He was too feminine. He dressed himself up in his dad’s old, worn leather jackets and a bad boy attitude to hide it, but mirrors told the truth._

_They reflected the softness of his heart, his yearning for love, his loyalty. They weren’t bad traits, his father would tell him, for women and fags._

And daddy was never proud of him, never proud of little Dean Winchester, trying to hard to outshine the shadow he was in.


End file.
